In Medellín, progress is being made in the largest voluntary indigenous return that has been carried out in the country with the support of the State. This has allowed the departure of 15 buses and six trucks with around 110 families. There are 420 people who are already in the direction of Alto Andáguedadepartment of Chocó, under an inter-institutional strategy that involves entities at the national and local level to guarantee security in the process and restoration of rights.
Between today and Thursday, the Victim Care and Reparation Team of the Secretariat for Non-Violence is in permanent coordination with the National Victim Care and Reparation Unit (UARIV), the Government Secretariat, the Ethnic Group Management, the ICBF, Ombudsman, Personería, Gobernación de Antioquia and the Gobernación del Chocó, accompany men, women, boys, girls, adolescents, young people and older adults who They are going to their ancestral territory to resume their life projects and productive units in a dignified and safe way.
On the first day of their return, 420 indigenous people are on their way to their shelters in Chocó
“This has meant a great joint effort that we hope will materialize in the best way. Today, as the Mayor of Medellín, he has represented us with some additional commitments with the Emberá community that will continue their return processes tomorrow and Thursday. For this, we have agreed to reinforce security at the Héctor Abad Gomez Educational Institution so that the people who are left feel that they have the security conditions to begin their return process on both days. Similarly, we are committed to the food that the population requires during Tuesday and Thursday will be supplied by the Mayor’s Office of Medellín”, expressed the Undersecretary of Restorative Justice for Non-Violence, Iván Palomino.
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The National Victim Attention and Reparation Unit has the task of monitor the return of the Emberá Katío communityin its function of coordinating the National System to guarantee the sustainability of the return, the restoration of the rights of the victims and the guarantee of dignified conditions for life.
“We are really happy as a community to return to the territory, to be able to change and express new futures in the territory. Here the Antioquia Mayor’s Office and Governor’s Office have supported us to reach the territory with all the corotos, because we cannot stay on the road,” he said. Rodrigo Pitopae, Emberá leader.
The District will continue with the application of the immediate attention routes in accordance with the provisions of the Public Policy of Assistance, Attention and Reparation to Victims; but recognizes the importance of the institutionality of the department of Chocó and the Colombian State commit to work for the guarantee of rights in the territory, food, housing, health, and work that is required with this community in Alto Andágueda to prevent further displacement to major cities.
The journey of almost 900 displaced indigenous people who return to their shelter begins
With the return that begins towards the Tahami reservation of Alto Andágueda (Chocó), Some 850 Emberá indigenous people want to leave behind the hardships they suffered for years of living in Medellínmost of them displaced by the armed conflict that expelled them from their ancestral territories.
Returning there with better living conditions is the desire to Pedro Vitucaywho plans to undertake a three-day trip that begins by bus this Tuesday in Medellín to the village of Ágüita in Pueblo Rico (Risaralda), where on Wednesday the families will receive humanitarian and economic aid from the Unit for Comprehensive Care and Reparation for Victims and the Medellín Mayor’s Office consisting of food, materials to condition their homes (wood, tiles), inputs for a craft project, musical instruments and payment for mule transport to their very distant areas.
From there Pedro, his wife and children they will take another path that can take between 7 and 10 hours with their belongings on mule back to zone 4one of the furthest from the reservation where some 9,000 people of the Emberá Katío ethnic group currently live.
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They have resisted the violence of disputes over gold since the 1970s and, in the last 20 years, the conflict between guerrillas and self-defense groups, in addition to lack of public services, health, education and communication channels.
Pedro is one of more than 2,000 indigenous people displaced from the Upper Andágueda by violence to cities such as Medellín, Bogotá, Pereira or Cali. For this reason, as one of the leaders of his community, he says that “we dialogue so that this return is with guarantees and rights as victims.”
He arrived in Medellín with his family five years ago 5 years “due to the conflict and threats there in the territory”. Like the rest of the displaced indigenous people in the “concrete jungle”, they suffered precarious living conditions such as overcrowding, unemployment, malnutrition and begging.
“This city is difficult for us to live in, there are many risks and everyone is money to eat, sleep. Sometimes the woman would go out there begging, but there are days we go without eating,” she said.
In order to comply with the guarantees, the Unit for Comprehensive Care and Reparation for Victims and the Medellín Mayor’s Office have arranged an accompaniment with the support of territorial entities and authorities from Antioquia, Risaralda and Chocó to the transfer of the 215 families between May 23 and 26.
The logistics began this weekend with the collection of belongings from the families in the tenements where they lived and at the headquarters of the Héctor Abad Gómez school for shipment, in advance, to Pueblo Rico.
According to Claudia Patricia Segura Pradacoordinator of returns and relocations of the Victim Reparation Unit, “this is and return plan with a differential ethnic approach coordinated with the territorial entitieswho join this great process and comply with those principles of voluntary, dignity and security.
The entity will make an approximate investment of 1,086,000,000 pesos for this accompaniment. “To guarantee permanence in their shelters and the sustainability of the return, the Unit for Victims will provide financial support to each returned family and the receiving home and, later, another economic resource for sustainability in the territory,” said the official.
In addition, he specified that this will be the ninth return of the Emberá population of Alto Andágueda that the entity coordinates from various cities in the country in favor of more than 2,500 indigenous people.
Martín Tequia, Senior Counselor of the Emberá Katío Association of Chocó, highlighted the 103 commitments with the entity focused on improving community infrastructureland restitution, health improvement and strengthening of organizations and productive projects.
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“We want to continue developing dignified returns, we are doing the management for those who are displaced to return and as an authorityI hope they go back to where they belong and where they never should have come from.”
With the claim that the return is sustainable over time, It is planned bring these communities closer to the offer in health, education, productive projects and improvement of roads, with the entities that make up the National System of Comprehensive Care and Reparation for Victims.
Since last year, in coordination with the territorial entities, the Unit for Victims supported members of the Emberá community with food and economic humanitarian aid recognized as displaced for their subsistence in Medellín.
As background, the entity and the Medellín Mayor’s Office carried out, in 2016, the return with the accompaniment of 320 Emberá indigenous people bound for the same reserve of Alto Andágueda.